Like most kids, I dreamed about being famous.
Unlike most kids, my dream has come true. (Neener-Neener-Neener! to all you other losers.)
Okay, so maybe my rise to fame wasn’t exactly what I imagined. I’m not playing in the NBA; I didn’t even play Division I basketball. I haven’t written a book (yet!). I haven’t saved any babies from burning buildings, or saved a lady in distress (yet!). So, I’m sure you’re wondering, Why exactly do you think you’re famous? And I’ll tell you:
I’ve been googled.
Yeah, it’s true. Now now, please don’t be too jealous. Someday someone somewhere could google you. (Or at least, you can keep telling yourself that…)
How do I know I’ve been googled? Well, when I was the editor for Christianity Today’s FaithVisuals, I set up Google Alerts to notify me when someone wrote something about FaithVisuals and/or Tyler Charles.
I no longer work there, and I really should cancel the alert for FaithVisuals (but unfortunately the alerts aren’t quite annoying enough to overpower my laziness, and thus, I haven’t). But I like that Google still detects when a new “Tyler Charles” reference surfaces online. Sometimes it has informed me that one of my newest articles has just gone live. But most of the time it just alerts me to the newest blog post written by some other Tyler Charles—in which he refers to himself as “The Dude” and waxes philosophical about the latest fly-fishing something or other yada yada yada…
Today, Google alerted me that my name was appearing somewhere new:
http://churchleadergazette.com/clg/2009/10/deciphering-data-storage-by-ty.html (You see how famous I am!?! My name—or at least the first two letters of my first name—even appear in the URL!)
This article first appeared in Your Church, and that’s where this site found it (they even cited the source, which is rare in the Internet world). But the weird thing, the thing that baffled me, was that this site, The Church Leader Gazette, included a picture of me—a picture that is in no way connected to the Your Church article.
So at first I thought, maybe this was done by somebody at The Church Leader Gazette who happens to know me. But that didn’t seem right. So, I wondered, How did they pair my article with my picture?
And then it hit me: I had just been googled!
So I googled myself (admit it, you’ve done it before!). Sure enough, there I was. (Nevermind that the first search result was a facebook page for a Tyler Charles from Fremont, Ohio. And nevermind that the second result was for a “Tyler Charles Untrauer,” who is in the Air Force Academy, and who keeps the rest of his facebook information private.) But at number three on the google results was a link to my old blog, Tyler’s Thoughts. And if you click on that old blog of mine, you’ll see a picture of me in the upper left-hand corner…which just so happens to be the picture that appears on The Church Leader Gazette.
So I can draw only one conclusion: They googled me. Which also means, to put it as humbly as possible, I’m a freakin’ rockstar.
Which is bad news for those ladies in distress, and all those babies in burning buildings, because if I hear them crying for help I’ll probably just shrug my shoulders and keep walking. After all, I’m already famous; what use do I have for them now?
Tyler Charles 